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"gesture" for "venture"!

I was listening to Frank Zappa’s “Civilization, Phaze III” today and one line of the improvised dialogue used the term “I would gesture to say” in a context which made it clear he meant “venture to say”. This being a rather extreme reshaping, I wasn’t surprised that it’s never been mentioned on Eggcorn Forum, and wasn’t expecting to find much when I googled it, but lo and behold, googling “would gesture to say” yields over 900 hits, and it looks like all of them are this eggcorn thing (though some are repeats of the same quote, of course). Some examples:

I would gesture to say the Gears of War(2) fans would tell you the same.

I would gesture to say that it costs them more if I use one gig in a single day versus one gig over a 30 day period.

I would gesture to say she’s about 40- 50 lbs overweight.

Interestingly, googling “I’d gesture to say” yields only 4 hits; for some unknown reason people who use this reshaping almost never use the contraction “I’d” in it.

I admit that the meaning connection needed to make this an eggcorn may be a bit strained, but I think we could say “gesture to say” conjures images of people gesturing while talking. What say you, assembled throng; would you gesture to say it’s an eggcorn or…? And, have any of you ever encountered this odd duck before?